


The Beginning of Izilo

by smolbeanswithredhairandguyliner



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, Panic! at the Disco, Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe, Animal Transformation, Cute, Fluff, M/M, Other, Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-05-22
Packaged: 2018-05-25 04:04:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6179467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smolbeanswithredhairandguyliner/pseuds/smolbeanswithredhairandguyliner
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Mitzel, everyone has their own animal that they will be able to become. It is scary finding out your animal - you leave your family, usually start becoming friends with new people. This story tells the adventures of 7 different friends in this fantasy world - Pete and Patrick, the mischievous pair, Ryan and Brendon, the forbidden lovers, Frank, the next leader, Mikey, the monstrosity, and Josh, the oddball out. Find out who changes in the group, who stays the same, and what will happen to their relationships with each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! It's been months since I've been here, and sadly it is very unlikely I will continue this story. I still love the idea and concept I created a while back, but my interest have change over time and I am going to say this story is coming to an end. Apologies to everyone who was hoping for more, but I sadly do not have the time or energy to finish this off.
> 
> \---------------------
> 
> So this is just a short little book about the adventures of some band members we all adore. It’s in a fantasy world called Mitzel, and it’s an idea I had ages ago that people could be able to turn into a single animal, and all animals were just a human who was transformed. As with any other fictional story, there are made up creatures or modified creatures. I hope you enjoy, and if you want me to continue it, it’d be great to see a comment!
> 
> Edit: Bad and good news - Bad news is it has become way too weird and complicated to write with the absence of genders, so there will be specified male/female/other characters. So that just means if you read the first chapter and there are weird pronoun mistakes, I'm sorry for that and with try to fix it. Good news is the next chapter is getting closer to finished! No guarantees as to when it will be out, but I'm hoping and aiming for the end of May :).

10 days after the New Year - the day the life changed for every 18 year old in Mitzel. They separate from their families and join a whole new group of people. Some kids were nervous, some were excited, but almost all were anxious to find out what they would become. They had been spending the past 18 years learning and preparing for today, and they were scared to mess it up. It happened every year on January 10th. Each of the 5 total sectors would have all their 18 year olds come to one of their designated meeting spots. Nearly everyone who was of age went to their sectors meeting. You never know what could happen at one of them, and people loved to meet their new members of their group.

Today was the day they found out their Alizoa. Your Alizoa was your second form, your animal form. It was different all the time. You can’t predict what anyone’s Alizoa will be - your age obviously doesn’t matter, neither your parents Alizis, and your personality often completely changes as your Alizoa. Your animal was just dependent on you and you only. There were things that many people believed to be true, though, one being that you had the same Alizoa as who you would come to love. There weren’t any laws against being with someone who has a different Alizoa than you, but it was very uncommon. In fact, it hadn’t ever happened.

The Alizoas were sorted into loose groupings, each with it’s own strengths and weaknesses. There was normal groups - water animals, land animals, flying animals, or a mix of two or all three. Sometimes people would get smaller animals that were fast, or large animals that were slow. There were the animals that were somewhere in between - fairly strong yet fast and large, or fast, but still with a great amount of strength. These were just some of the many characteristics Alizoas could get. Scientist couldn’t figure out why, but nobody ever got bugs or worms. The smallest possible animal you could get is an elephant shrew. People were thankful for that, though. I mean, who would want to turn into a mosquito or house fly?

People considered all of the animals equal in overall ability, of course with some personal preferences, but there were three that were the rarest and were immediately put in a position of power and respect. The first were King Cobras. They were the size of a raccoon, and the length of a giraffes neck. They were fast, striking with speed and agility, and their poison was the most venomous of any other animal. The second was Alice Owls. They had the body of a normal owl, fast and graceful, but they were smarter than all the other Alizoas, combined. So much so, they knew whatever the other creatures would do before they did it, causing them to win any fight they fought. The last were Dire Wolves. These creatures were terrifying, to say the least. Twice the size of normal wolves, and twice as strong. All of their eyes were one color all across - no pupil and no iris. These were called The Great Three. The last Great Three came about 3 years ago, and they have been seeming to come every 5-10 years, so it was unlikely to happen again for a few years.

Now there were the seven inseparable best friends driving together to the closet meeting spot. The car was filled with nervous energy. They knew it was highly unlikely that any of them would get the same Alizoa, but they were okay with it. Most of the time friends stayed friends, even after they found about their new transformation. Six of them were nervous in case they got a form they didn’t want. The only one who seemed absolutely okay with anything that he got was Pete. He made the argument that if he got something bad, nothing would change, but if he got something good, his life may improve. He claimed it was a ‘win : bigger win situation’.

The two shortest of the group, however, were a pile of nerves. Patrick was staring out the front window, smashed between Pete and Josh in the middle row. He legs were bouncing up and down wildly, clearly nervous. His parents told him to try and look good, but he had dark circles beneath his eyes and he had attempted to slick back his dirty blonde hair, but some stray pieces were falling into and around his face. He was wearing an old t-shirt with a tuxedo print on it and black skinny jeans that he bought a few days ago with Pete. The shirt was much too big because he got it when he was 14, and he had lost over 50 pounds since then, but he refused to throw it out because it was his favorite. Pete grabbed his thumping knee and squeezed it gently, rubbing his leg up and down. Patrick visibly relaxed and looked at Pete with a small smile. The older of the two had cut off his long, blonde dreadlocks and changed it to a much neater short, black, sophisticated look. Patrick liked this look more than his previous one. He and Pete had always wanted to date each other but they both agreed that it would be less painful when the meeting came. Now it was today, and it was still painful as hell to accept that they couldn’t be together.

Josh was staring mindlessly out the window. He had ear buds pumping music into his ears, his hands tapping rhythmically with the beat. He wasn’t excited for what was going to happen today. He had a bad feeling that after the meeting his friends wouldn’t stay friends with him. Why? Well, Josh had always been the 7th of the seven. The oddball. He really hoped that whatever his Alizoa might be, it would be good at finding friends. Now, his hair was freshly dyed a bright red. He had wanted to get rid of the blue color he had before, only to change things up a little.

Frank was sitting in the passenger seat, trying to keep his breathing steady and calm. Mikey was sat driving to his left, trying to convince him that it would be alright. It wasn’t really helping - what if Frank got an awful animal? Like a fish? Or a fat tabby cat or something? They were best friends, so Frank could tell that Mikey was worried, too, but not nearly as much as Frank. They had both changed their appearance for today - Frank got a buzz cut on his long, shaggy brown hair, and now he was wearing a big, green sweatshirt and sagging black jeans. Mikey had gone as far to get laser eye surgery so he wasn’t wearing glasses anymore. His face and head that were usually covered by a grey beanie and greasy blonde hair falling over his eyes was now visible, and his hair was slicked back and the darkest possible black it could be.

Brendon and Ryan were squeezed in the back together. They were exchanging hurried whispers, heads close together. Ryan’s hair was different from what it usually was, which was straight and across his face. Now it was curly and a lighter brown than normal. There was a red and white bandana folded and tied right at the roots so that his hair wasn’t in his eyes. He had a white dress shirt that was folded up at his forearms, and a dark green button up vest over it. He had on old blue jeans that were turning white from being worn so often. Brendon had seen Ryan’s hair change, and he decided to get his own. His sideburns were cut off and the long bangs that would be over one of his eyes were now short and quaffed up. He had large rimmed, black eyeglasses on. He wore his normal black t-shirt and blue jeans. Everyone in their friend group saw that Ryan and Brendon wanted more than just a friendship, but no one usually dated before getting their Alizoa. It was very likely that you and your spouse would not be the same Alizoa, considering it was a sort of unspoken rule that you shouldn’t date a Alizoa different from you.

After 45 minutes of driving, Mikey pulled up to a wide building. It wasn’t extremely tall, but it had a beautifully designed exterior. There were three bastions, the middle being the tallest. It was painted a gold color, and each bastion had a large window on it. If the kids were to make a comparison, they would say it looked like a modern day castle. After finding a parking space with great difficulty, they all climbed out of the car. After walking to the entrance, they stood in a circle all facing each other.

“Well, this is it guys. You ready?” Pete clapped and rubbed his hands together with a blinding smile on his face.

“I don’t think I’ll ever be ready,” Patrick sighed. His chest felt like it was going to explode from nerves. The other 5 muttered their agreements. After spending their whole lives together, they could communicate without really talking. They exchanged hugs and smiles with one another as though they wouldn’t see each other again, when in reality they would. Yes, it would be less often, but it wouldn’t end. School stopped at 18, and instead they started to work with their Alizis, depending on what they were. They turned and walked in side by side, entering through the large doors. There seemed to be around 150 kids in the room on the front row of the first floor. Parents, older siblings, and other viewers were in the back of the room and up along the balconies. In the front of the room on a stage there was a box. The 7 recognized it as the switching box. When an 18 year old is put into the box, their first transformation into their Alizoa is forced upon them.

They walked down the aisle in the middle and found their assigned seats that were, thankfully, all next to each other. Since each sector didn’t have more than 1,500 people in it, everyone at least recognized each other, and the leaders knew who were friends with who. The lights dimmed and their sector’s, Sector 2, head came onto the stage. He was old, tall, thin and had long white hair past his shoulders. He was wearing a pretty blue dress. His name was Jalco and he was an Alice Owl. Leaders of the sectors were always one of The Great Three, most commonly an Alice Owl because they knew how to make intelligent decisions for their Sector.

“Welcome all!” Jalco said, gesturing his hands to the audience, “I am pleased to begin this year’s meeting to find out Sector 2’s newest Alizoas. I am not one for speeches, so I hope if it is alright that we begin immediately.” The audience cheered and whistled. People have heard of the welcoming speeches for these to be an hours long, causing the to-be-transformed’s to become even more nervous and anxious. “Please, keep in mind that these children have not yet been transformed into their Alizoas, so they could be nervous or hesitant in front of over a thousand people. Now, let us start. First - Hayley Williams!” The audience gave claps and cheers as a girl with long orange hair but unnaturally short bangs made her way to the stage. She waved at everyone, clearly comfortable, and stepped into the box. A light shown from it and the doors opened. Hayley was gone, but a snowy white fox jumped out and swayed it’s tail and flaunted around.

“Wonderful! An arctic fox. Congratulations. Please welcome Brick, Hayley’s Alizoa.” Since it was clearly comfortable, people cheered. After a few seconds, it jumped in the air and transformed back to Hayley. She was looked down at his body as though she had never seen it before, walking off the stage with a bright smile. Jalco continued, calling many other people. Nothing too interesting - a red panda, a bulldog, a penguin. The audience never lost it’s energy, including the 7. They were ecstatic, and slowly getting more and more comfortable with finding out their Alizoa, even excited.

“Ryan Ross!” Jalco called. Ryan stood with shaking legs as his friends cheered and patted him on the back. He stepped up onto the stage and looked at Jalco hesitantly. He bowed his head, showing that he should continue. Ryan stepped into the box and it closed, glowing a bright white light. Inside the box it felt warm, and Ryan felt his strength grow immensely. He vision was at knee height and the doors flew open. Out stepped a pure white lion with a large main around it’s face. His eyes were an icy blue as he gazed across the people in front of him. They looked scared, all except for one. He didn’t recognize these people, but the one who was shocked instead of scared seemed to have a warmth to him. The Alizoa walked in his direction to the end of the stage and tried to say hello, but instead all that came out was a giant roar. The audience took a second, but then erupted with shouts and cheers.

“A white lion… Very interesting, very strong. Welcome Bevro!” Slowly the faces became familiar again, and the strength Ryan felt was gone. His eye level became as it normally was, and he realized it was Brendon who caught his attention when he was Bevro. He walked in a dazed state back to his seat. He friends all hugged and congratulated him - a white lion was a magnificent creature. They sat down once more and turned their attention back to the stage. Brendon was beaming. His best friend was a _lion_. A fucking white lion! He hoped to himself that he could be a lion as well. Then maybe they could be together…

Only two people were called before the next one of the friends was called to receive it’s Alizoa.

“Next up - Joshua Dun.” Josh smiled, but it seemed to have a background of sadness to it. Josh’s friends loved him, and he loved them back, but he always felt like he was the odd one out. Brendon had Ryan, Patrick and Pete, and Frank and Mikey. He worried that once the meeting was over, they wouldn’t be as good of friends to him anymore. He walked up to the stage nervously, and you could tell. His face was paler than normal, and his arm was shaking as a nervous tick. The room was eerily quiet as he slowly walked into the Box. He turned around to see his friends and family for the last time before the door shut. It was quiet for a moment, the box glowed such a light red it was nearly pink. The doors creaked open, almost as though it was an accident. Nothing happened for a moment, just quiet as the viewers waited for the new Alizoa to appear. They thought a small rodent of some sort would come out, so you couldn’t blame then for screaming when a huge brown bear thundered out of the closet-like-room.

“Presenting Ceppu, the brown bear,” Jalco said, taking a step back as Ceppu stood on his hind legs and roared. The bear shrunk down and lost its fur, appearing once more as Josh. He looked at the audience wide eyed, and they erupted into applause. He let a huff of surprise and stumbled back to his seat. His friends gaped at him as he collapsed down into his chair. He looked at Pete, who was dumbly half gaping, half smily at him.

“Dude,” he laughed, “You’re a fuckin’ bear.” Josh laughed with relief as Pete pulled him into a hug and rubbed his clenched fist playfully into Josh’s head.

“That was surely one of our more intimidating animals,” Jalco joked. The audience laughed as he brought up the next person, Ashley Frangipane. It was a pretty girl with wavy blue hair down to her elbows and big green eyes. She walked into the box with a lose dress flowing behind her. The box glowed a lavender color before she stepped out as a lean, bear-looking thing. Josh smiled brightly when he realized this person would be with him. It had white up his nose and around his eyes, and it was a stunning animal. It shyly looked around the audience and clawed a paw through the air, as if saying hello. The audience ‘aw’ed then clapped softly and kindly as to not scare the bear.

“Please welcome Halsey, the sloth bear.” The audience clapped as the bear back arched and turned once more into Ashley. She smiled softly then looked to Josh. They made eye contact as Josh was clapping, and she winked. Pete and Frank nudged him and teased ‘Josh has a girlfriend, Josh has a girlfriend’. Josh blushed and looked at his lap, smiling. His friends snickered, but he just ignored them, looking at the stage again. Frank felt his stomach churn as Jalco called out his name. He was nervous, but he didn’t show it as he walked with confidence onto the stage. He walked into the box and it shut behind him. He whipped around and the box started to shake and vibrate. Frank put both his hands on the side walls to keep himself from falling. He fell onto his knees as he was blinded by bright red light.

The people in the audience worried as the box violently shook and glowed brighter than it had for anyone else. When it opened again, a huge black creature crawled out. It’s head was down, but it was still slightly larger than the size of a bear. It’s jet black fur was rugged and full, sticking up down the middle of it’s back. It had a large furry tail dragging behind it. Some audience members gasped, and Jalco’s eyes widened and he mumbled to himself ‘it can’t be’. When the monster’s head lifted and his eyes opened, and he had glowing blood red eyes, with no pupil or iris. He bared his teeth and growled towards the audience.

“Claw, the Dire Wolf,” Jalco announced, still staring at him with disbelief. Claw looked up to the sky and howled, shaking the room. He looked back before shrinking an incredibly large amount, back to Frank who was on his hands and knees on the floor, panting. He slowly pushed himself to stand, putting his arms by his side. He looked at the audience with bravery, challenging them. The room was still silent as everyone whispered with shock. His friends were staring at him, eyes narrowed as though surprised that they didn’t realize what he was sooner.

“Welcome the next of The Great Three,” Jalco finally smiled and bowed to Frank. The small kid nodded his head, and turned back to the audience. Ryan, of all people, stood up and started to clap in the silence. The rest of his friends joined him, and eventually everyone in the room was standing and clapping. Everyone except for Mikey. There weren’t any screams or yells, yet the applause still seemed the loudest of all. Frank waved and the audience let out whoops and cheers. In the top right corner, the now second youngest of the Great Three’s raised an eyebrow. He had come here to see his brother get his Alizoa, because in the past years he hadn’t had the time to come, but now he was glad he did. His Alizoa was also a Dire Wolf, his colors the inverse of Claw’s - red fur and black eyes. Usually Great Three’s are way too uncommon to find any boyfriends their age, but now Gerard hopes he has gotten lucky.

After the audience settled down from their new addition to The Great Three, Jalco continued with calling people up. Frank sat with Mikey who turned to him and mumbled an unenthusiastic congratulation. Frank was still high on adrenaline from being Claw, but he still noticed Mikey’s change in energy.

“You okay?” The older sighed, looking down at his lap. He hadn’t been this nervous in the car, and Frank had a bad feeling it was his fault.

“It’s just, I’m really nervous,” He mumbled, “I’m happy for you, but first my brother becomes a Dire Wolf and now my best friend. I’m just scared I’ll be a bunny or something.”

“Gee is that new Dire Wolf?” Frank asked. He remembered Gee from when he was younger. He had always been kind and Frank maybe had a slight crush on him back then. Mikey had never mentioned he became a Dire Wolf. Maybe now he could follow up on that crush…

“Yeah. His wolf’s name is Blood,” Mikey shook his head, as though he still couldn’t believe it, “I really am happy for you though, Frank. Claw is badass.” Frank smiled gratefully at his friend. He couldn’t wait to switch back to Claw. He had never felt that much strength or wisdom, and it was exhilarating, but for now he needed to focus on what was happening so that he wouldn’t become anxious.

Jalco called for Patrick to come up, and the short kid paled. He slowly and shakily walked up the stage into the box. He turned around and opened his mouth as though he was about to protest, but the door slammed in his face. His light was gold and when the door opened the audience jumped back with a surprised yelp. A large falcon bursted out and soared around the room, doing backflips and barrel rolls in the air. It’s feathered shown gold under the light and it let out a screech. The people beneath the graceful creature jumped up and reached their hands up, cheering. As he was landing back onto the stage he turned back to Patrick and stumbled forward.

“That was a falcon with the name of Dart,” Jalco smiled and gently patted Patrick on the back. Patrick returned the smile and stumbled back to his seat. Pete smiled at him and hugged him when he sat down.

“I told you it was gonna be okay,” The black haired boy laughed, and Patrick felt like he was going to cry. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t Pat’s first choice, but he was surely happy that it wasn’t a rat or eel. Before Patrick to respond to Pete, he was gone. He looked forward and his best friend was entering the box, turning and giving the room a salute before the doors closed on him. Pete’s light was silver, before the doors open and a small, sliver feathered falcon strutted out.

“Another falcon, and this one goes by Bullet.” As though on cue, Bullet shot into the air with incredible speed. He went as high as the ceiling before looping around and plummeting straight to the ground. The audience was cheering and screaming. Before he could hit the floor, he changed his angle up and smoothly and slowly landed on the lap of none other then Patrick Stump. When he tuned back into Pete, he was still straddling Patrick. Instead of getting off, however, he stayed there and stared straight at Patrick, face serious for the first time in his life.

“We’re the same Alizoa,” Pete realized. Patrick just nodded happily with a huge smile on his face. “Patty do you know what this means?” Patrick responded by grabbing the back of his head and pulling their lips together. Pete kissed back for a second, but they both had to pull away to smile. Patrick immediately let go of all his dislike of being a falcon - he couldn’t have chosen any other animal more perfectly.

The time passed extremely slowly for Brendon. He was sat next to Ryan, holding his hand while he still could. Either him or Mikey was going to be the last in their group, and he was hoping it was Mikey. To his relief and terror, Jalco called him up. He waltzed up to the stage and, despite his nerves, gave the audience a blinding smile before stepping in to the wooden closet. The audience cheered before they even found out his Alizoa. Brendon had a way of charming everyone into liking him. When a green light showed and the box opened, a black panther stepped out. The creature’s shoulder’s rippled high behind his head as he walked to the center of the stage. His eyes were a unnaturally light green, glowing even brighter against his black fur. The audience sounded out in a giant wave of noise, but the panther silence them by roaring louder than anything had yet. The room fell silent and his tail went up into the air, swaying as though he was going to pounce. Just before he did, though, the creature straightened up and turned into Brendon once more.

“Keep an eye on your Alizoa, Brendon, for he is dangerous - a black panther named Thunder.” The audience cheered again, but quieter and shyer. Brendon laughed a put up a hand.

“Sorry about that,” He said guiltily as he blushed and everyone laughed along with him, cheering as though saying ‘ _Don’t worry about it_ ’. When Brendon sat next to Ryan, they looked at each other with sad eyes. Despite it being nearly impossible, they had both secretly hoped that Brendon had been a lion so that maybe they would’ve been together. But no, that would’ve been impossible. Ryan mouthed ‘ _We’ll figure it out_ ’ as the next child was called onstage.

It was an entire thirty minutes before it was Mikey’s turn. In that thirty minutes, Mikey had gone from sad to nervous to scared to absolutely petrified. Mikey wasn’t one to get nervous - it just wasn’t an emotion he had. If he was nervous, that meant something was destined to go wrong. He knew it, he had this awful feeling. Something was going to go terribly wrong.

“Lastly, Mikey Way,” Jalco smiled. Mikey got up and trudged to the stage. His head was spinning and he wanted to turn and run far away, but he wouldn’t. He couldn’t. The walk to the box felt shorter than it looked. Mikey stepped in and looked back at the audience, seeing Frank beaming at him, Brendon and Ryan sadly pressing their foreheads against each other, Pete giving him a thumbs up, and Patrick and Josh gave him a half smile. Frank frowned when they made eye contact, seeing the absolute terror in Mikey’s eyes. As though second instinct, he realized this wasn’t right. There was something wrong. Frank stood up as the box’s doors creaked shut eerily slow. He started to walk down the isle, but was stopped when he had to shied his eyes from the white light coming from the box. It took over the room, blinding people near the front. It was as though a piece of sun had been captured and now was trying to escape. The light faded as the door creaked open as slowly as it did close. As they opened, a large, furry, black and white body fell limply onto the ground.

“Mikey!” Frank yelled, feeling the same feeling of strength and wisdom take over him as he darted down the aisle at non-human speed. He grew taller and felt something heavy land on him while he was trying to get to his injured friend. He rolled over, kicking whatever it was off him. He stood up and saw Mikey’s Alizoa still laying lifelessly in front of the box. Blood had taken over Gee and jumped down from the balcony onto Claw, stopping him from going any further. Brotherly love was so strong that it lived on even in Alizis. To Blood’s surprise, Claw managed to kick him off, continuing to run to the new creature. Blood took a giant leap and pinned Claw once again. This time when Claw tried to kick him off, he was prepared. However, when Claw realized he couldn’t overpower the older wolf, he gave up on physical smarts. Instead, he shrunk back down to Frank, surprising the wolf and allowing him to crawl free and run again. Blood slowly shrunk back down to his human size.

“Frank! Stop!” Gee called out. He was thankful when Frank recognized his voice and turned around. His eyes were filled with fear and worry.

“Gee?” He asked confused. It took him a second to recognize the old friend. His previously black hair was dyed a fiery red, long down to his shoulders. “Gee, thank goodness. Mikey’s in trouble. We need to help him,” Frank pleaded, gesturing to the stage where, unbenounced to the concerned audience, the Alizoa had woken up.

“No, Frank, we can’t,” Gee caught up to Frank and held his arm, “He needs to do this on his own.”

“But-“

“I’m his brother. Do you really think that I would put him into danger… Oh my god,” Gee trailed off, looking dazed yet mesmerized by something behind Frank. The smaller boy quickly turned around, seeing a snowy tiger limping to the front of the stage. What was wrong with it? After the tiger got to the front of the stage, he stopped, as though waiting for something.

“Ah, a snowy-“ Jalco was interrupted because he was flung 5 feet backwards. Thankfully, before he made contact with the ground, Grace, his owl, took over and flew next to Frank and Gerard who were gaping at the stage. Grace transformed back to Jalco and saw why there were so shocked and found out what had hit him.

On stage stood a large snowy tiger, but behind stretched two giant feathery wings, both no shorter than ten feet each. Without warning, the tiger pumped his wings once, hovering a few feet above the stage. The power of the wings cause the first three rows of people to be blown backwards. For the first time, Mikey’s Alizoa giant head lifted, showing everyone his eyes.

They were solid blue with no iris and no pupil.

In a shine of light the tiger was gone, and Mikey fell to the ground from the middle of the air. He was lying on his side, unmoving, just like his Alizoa had been. Frank and Gerard immediately began to run forward again, kneeling down to help their friend and brother. The room was completely silent, no one moving, no one cheering. Silence. Jalco walked slowly back onto the stage as Mikey was being lifted up between his two favorite people on his right and left. Some people were giving Mikey glares, some were just confused, but nobody seemed to be happy.

“His name was Primera. I’m sorry, but I don’t know what animal that was. That’s… That’s never been seen before,” Jalco said with a tone of sorrow. The audience gasped and started to whisper and talk to one another. One of the kids who had already been given an Alizoa cried out, ‘is he a monster?’. This caused Gee to gasp and take a step back, letting Mikey stand on his own.

“Quiet down, please,” Gee tried to call out but no one paid him any attention. Thankfully, Frank had heard him and morphed back into Claw, roaring so that everyone turned their attention back to the stage. “How _dare_ you call my brother’s Alizoa a monster. I’m sure when the first Dire Wolf or King Cobra came around people were just as surprised. Primera is beautiful, and clearly strong than most other Alizis. last time I checked, there has been no Alizoa with the strength of a tiger, yet the ability to fly with the most powerful set of wings. All of The Great Three’s eyes glow one color and one color only. If I saw correctly, Primera only had one color is his eyes.” Gee turned to his brother, “That must mean The Great Three is now The Great Four.” The crowd gasped in unison as Frank and Gee turned and bent their leg and bowed their head to Mikey. He looked at them confused, but then started to understand. Everyone is the room was standing up and bowing to him. He raised his head and stood proudly in front of everyone. They rose and clapped for him, shouting cheers and praises. There were a few people who were not clapping, however. They sat with unhappy, disgusted looks on their faces, appalled that these people would accept such a monstrosity in their society.

“Well now,” Jalco spoke as the Dire Wolves and the new species made their way back to their seats, “That certainly was the most exciting meeting held for years, wouldn’t you agree?” The audience cheered in response, “Now, I’m sure a lot of you want to go hang out with your friends, but now it the time to go and meet your new families. Please go outside and you will find people waiting for the each of you. Good luck with your new lives. Mikey and Frank, come here.” The room started to rumble with noise as excited kids went to find out where they were going. Pete and Patrick held hands as they walked though the front doors, waving a short goodbye to their friends. Ryan and Brendon hugged each other before pulling back.

“See you later?” Brendon asked hopefully.

“Of course,” Ryan responded with a smile. Josh had turned to leave but somebody slid up next to him. He looked to see Ashley, the blue haired kid from earlier.

“Want to find the bears together?” Josh smiled at her.

“I’d love to,” Josh responded, and they walked out side by side. Frank and Mikey walked up to the stage together, greeted by Jalco and Gee.

“Mikey, Frank,” Jalco said with a smile, “Congratulations. Obviously, nobody has the same species as you, Mikey. It’ll be okay, we will figure it out in Bepul.” Mikey smiled gratefully at him.

“Frank, you’re with me,” Gee said with a mischievous smile. Mikey watched sadly as Frank and Gee left side by side through the back door. He and Jalco left through the front doors, herded into a black car with dark windows. As they were driving away, Mikey saw people gathering together with their soon to become new families, gathering into buses to travel to Bepul where the rest of their kind would be waiting.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, so it been just about 3 weeks since the first chapter, and, all things considered, I'm happy at how quickly I got this chapter up. I hope you enjoy and I always love getting comments. :)
> 
> Edit: whoops I'm bad at keeping track of my life and realized it is in fact not march anymore, it is may, so i apologize for the 4 month gap of chapters... wow that was not my brightest moment

Josh and Ashley were greeted with slaps on the back and ‘welcome guys!’. The new friends were the only two bears from Sector 2 who were new this year, so all the attention was on them. They were getting on the bus to head to their area in Bepul. Each animal, or species of animal, had an area designated for them to be their Alizis and help with other, newer Alizis. The other bears were clearly very excited to have new members, laughing and cheering. Ashley and Josh chose a seat in the back row, and all the other people turned to face them. The bus growled into life and began to move forward.

“Welcome to The Bear Bus!” A pretty young girl called to them, shaking their hands with a smile. She had a thin face, and long, brown hair a few inches past her elbows. They were tied in two cute braids next to her head, thrown over in front of her shoulders. She wore shorts and a loose dark blue tank top that looked good drifting over her chest. Everyone around them cheered and laughed. “My name is Josie.” Somebody behind him called out ‘No it’s Josilind!’. She flipped the guy off and laughed, turning back to Josh and Ashley. “Anyway, you’re Alizis are gonna love it in our area. It’s official name is Athwale Ihlathi, but since that’s a mouthful, we bears just call it Dozo. It’s absolutely wonderful - it’s a huge forest that’s never gets too cold, not even in the winter. And there’s a lake right in the middle of it where all the bears just go and hang out.” She stopped as another person walked down next to her. This guy was short, but very well built. He had white hair that was buzzed short on his head. His eyes were such a dark brown they were nearly black.

“We are so happy to have you join our family. Right?!” He turned and asked the rest of the bus, which was about 20 people, all from bears Sector 2 and between the ages of 18 and 30. Older people didn’t usually come on the buses due to the fact there was limited room and everyone was very rowdy. Every body cheered as an answer to his question. “I’m Clay.” He stuck out his hand and gave the two newest additions a blinding white smile. The two being addressed took the hand and shook. “It’s great, because since there are so many bears, our area is huge,” Clay told the two. Everyone murmmered their agreements.

“Josh!” Someone in the back called out, causing him to snap his head up, “You know Ceppu is going to be the biggest bear in Dozo?” Josh laughed nervously, biting his tongue slightly between his teeth.

“Is that a good thing?” He asked hesitantly. The bus responded a loud ‘yeah!’ in unison.

“Ai don’t be so sure about it - Laia texted me that Sector 4’s got another member of the Bear Crew, and apparently he’s huge,” Someone else joined in the conversation. “I’m Lola, by the way. It’s good to have you.” She exchanged handshakes with them. She was not particularly attractive nor unattractive - big blue eyes and long stringy yellow hair.

“Tell Laia that Ceppu is _huge_ ,” Clay exaggerated.

“Size doesn’t matter,” Someone shouted, causing everyone to break into immature laughter, including Josh and Ashley. Lola turned to the aforementioned, “Ashley - you got a sloth bear! That’s sick. There hasn’t been one of those in years.”

“Yeah. Halsey is gorgeous,” A small guy sitting next to Josh spoke up.

“Thanks. I really love her. It’s crazy how strong you feel when you’re transformed,” Ashley said as she smiled at the smaller kid. He couldn’t have been any older than 20. The whole room laughed and agreed.

“I’m Nyle, by the way.” Ashley and Josh shook his dainty hand.

“Yo, I just got the update on new members!” A tall, buff guy with tattoos and a blonde beard and hair came around with a phone in his hand. He must’ve been around 24 years old, wearing a blue t-shirt and basket ball shorts, along with a well fitting black hoodie. “Alright, Sector 1 there’s no one new.” There was a collective sound of disappointment throughout the bus. “Two from Sector 2, duh, none from 3, two from 4, and one from 5. Not bad - five new members total.” Sounds of overall approval rang through the vehicle. People went into personal conversations for a while, the guy coming over to Josh as Ashley got into a conversation with Nyle.

“I’m Andy,” He offered a hand, which Josh accepted easily. Josh had always been a social person - not necessarily ‘popular’, but everyone he met seemed to fall in love with him almost immediately. Andy seemed to be slightly older then everyone else on the bus, and, if Josh had to guess, was probably the supervisor or something of the sorts.

“So, listen, you may think that all the guys on this bus were exaggerating into making you think that you were the biggest bear we’ve had in a while, but they’re right. Just be careful,” Andy warned, squatting in order to be on Josh’s level.

“What does that even mean though? Why does it matter?” Josh asked, slightly scared and confused. The bus rumbled and jerked and he realized they were coming to a stop.

“You’ll learn soon enough. Just know who are you’re friends and who are not.” Andy clapped him on the back and exited the bus along with everyone else. Ashley wasn’t next to him anymore, he assumed she left with Nyle, and he ended up being the last one off. When he stepped out of the Bear Bus what he saw made his jaw drop. All the people he had just met had turned into their Alizoa and were stampeding to a lake with hundreds of other bears coming from 4 other buses. The new recruits and the supervisors were the only still in human form.

“Do you guys know how to turn?” Andy spoke to Ashley and I, and we both shook our heads.

“Alright, you just need to imagine your Alizoa. Think of being them, of morphing into a bear, and just relax.” Andy took a deep, exaggerated breath as he said it, and he melted into a normal sized brown bear and went off to the lake. Josh looked over for Ashley, but all he saw was Halsey looking happily confused at his paws and clumsily running to the lake. He chuckled a deep laugh as he tripped and fell over his body. Josh closed his eyes and thought of Ceppu and the strength he felt when he was him, the poser of being bigger and stronger than everyone else in the room…

When he opened his eyes, the growls and calls of the bears had turned to laughter and cheers, and he felt taller. When he looked down he saw two giant paws with sharp claws on it, and he felt slightly stronger but clumsy, like heh didn’t know how to walk yet. He laughed gleefully, high on the feeling of being Ceppu. His paws carried him down to the forest, wandering through the trees, the warm forest. Soon the laughter faded just enough and he was alone, a bear in the trees. At least he thought he was.

“Who are you?” He turned around to see a bear his size, growling possessively. Josh tried to say he meant no harm, but he couldn’t. Ceppu was in control now, and he was an animal who kept it’’s territory.

“Ceppu,” Josh felt himself growl. “And you?”

“Uku,” He responded before launching himself at Josh. Somehow, he realized they weren’t going to hurt each other. Like it was some form of game to attack one another. Ceppu sprang into action and got on his hind paws, wrestling Uku back. They stumbled and bit, eventually finding their way back to the lake. With a final push, Ceppu jumped onto Uku and they both tumbled into the lake, breaking into laughter. Josh felt himself returning to a human, and saw the same was happening to Uku, who ended up being a kid his age a few inches shorter with short, fluffy brown hair and a black tank top. He extended his hand while still laughing, which Josh took happily.

“I’m Josh,” He said with a smile to the smaller boy, still knee deep in the lake. They released each other’s hand before the kid introduced himself.

“The name’s Tyler.” After looking around, Josh noticed that nearly everyone else in the lake was staring at them. One Alizoa morphed back into a human and came over to them. He was buff, probably one of the older people here.

“Hey,” The guy came over. He was in a bathing suit, so he swam over easily. “I’m Oscar. Just thought I should introduce myself because, considering your Alizoas… What are their names?” He asked.

“Ceppu.”

“Uku.” He nodded and continued to talk.

“Considering Ceppu and Uku’s sizing, I will probably be one of your trainers. I train the bigger bears most the time.” He extended a hand and Tyler took it, and then Josh. “What’s your guys’ names?” They introduced themselves. “Well, great. I’m excited to get to know you two.” He morphed back to his Alizoa and wadded away. Tyler and Josh exchanged a look of ‘that guy was a little off’ before they laughed and turned away. The two got to talking, wading out of the lake and towards the house that was set up for people to go into and just hang out during the day. It was really nice - a log cabin was a good way to describe, minus the fact it was probably five times the size of a cabin. When the two walked in, they were greeted by a beaming guy who sat behind a table with papers spread in front of him.

“Names?” He asked in a small, peppy voice. Josh and Tyler respond, and he laughed a little when he ran his finger down the page. “What a quinky-dink! You two are roommates in room 503.” He toss them each a key, “I’ll have Jenna show you around. Jenna!!” A young guy, probably younger than me, came around the corner. He was stunning - absolutely no stomach, rather thin short blonde hair, wearing a blue crop top and a loose skirt. She smiled politely and gestured for us to follow, blushing slightly when he and Tyler locked eyes. They followed her up the stairs to a door with gold letters printed as ‘503’.

“Uh, could I have one of your keys?” She ask shyly in a small voice. Tyler smiled at him and handed his over, and she unlocked the door. The room was very nice - it had a large window shining into a kitchen and dining room. Jenna led us over to the door in the back left of the room. It had a large bed and a desk, as well as another big window. There was a bathroom with a shower, sink, and toilet. Directly across the kitchen was an identical room. She then showed us the room that had a couch and a T.V., as well as a drum set, piano, and a table.

“No way!” Tyler exclaimed, “They gave us a piano? That’s sick!”

“And a drum set! I was worried about how I was going to practice,” Josh said happily.

“Wait, you play?” Tyler asked, without waiting for an answer, “Dude! We can totally jam together!”

“I’m going to go down and see if Dane needs more help, but the landline is there for food to be delivered, calling home, and anything else you need help with. It was nice meeting you both, and your luggage will be here in the next hour. Andy’ll bring you your training schedules.” Jenna waved shyly and exited the room.

“She was cute,” Tyler squeaked. Josh snorted and rolled my eyes.

“You should go out with her. She clearly liked you.” Tyler just shrugged and walked over to the piano, running his hands over it and awing at it. He was about to play when there was a knock on the door. Since he was closer, Josh walked and opened it to see Andy.

“Hey! Is your roommate here too?” Tyler came over and gave a small wave. “Great. Here is your schedules,” He handed each of them a sheet of paper, “Hopefully it’s appealing to you, and we don’t do anything like homework or lectures or stuff. I’m excited to start with you two!” When Andy turned and walked away, he nearly crashed into the same guy from the front desk who was carrying Tyler and Josh’s stuff.

“Hello again you two! Here’s your things!” He dropped the suitcases and turned away to immediately turn back around, “Silly me! I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Dane. Come to me whenever you need something!” He scurried down the stairs as the boys grabbed their stuff and closed their door.

“So, which room do you want?” Josh asked, to which Tyler shrugged.

“Left one, I guess.” Josh nodded and went to his own room, unpacking his things into the dresser they provided. He looked at the activities planned on the sheet for he and Tyler, as well as others, he assumed. He didn’t know what a lot of them meant, and the ones he did know he didn’t know why he would need to have them as skills. He decided to just let it go and change into some different clothes. When he finished, he pushed the drawer back into place and grabbed his sticks, heading to the music room he was before. Tyler wasn’t there, so he just started playing some random beats.

“Dude!” Josh turned around to see Tyler look at him. “You’re awesome! This is awesome! We can like, be a band. This is sick.” Josh laughed and was about to stand when Tyler pointed at him.

“No! Stay there.” He moved to sit at the piano and thought for a second before springing back up and running to his room. He came back with a ukelele in his hands and joy all over his face.

“Okay, okay, I wanna try something. Can you just playing a beat when it sounds right? Whatever and whenever you want to, I just want to see if this’ll work.” Tyler started strumming a cute, upbeat pattern on his ukelele. After a measure or two, he started singing lyrics about who Josh presumed was his mom. He sounded great - a unique voice, that for sure, but nonetheless a wonderful sound. Eventually Josh decide to just play something simple and it actually sounded really nice. The song ended and they smiled at one another.

“Sick,” Tyler said.

“Sick,” Josh agreed. “Where’d you learn that song?”

“I wrote it, actually. I’ve wrote a few songs.” Tyler reddened slightly, but still sounded proud.

“That’s great man. It was a really nice song. People would love it,” Josh commented. Tyler smiled brightly, as if Josh had just given him the best gift ever.

“You think?”

“Definitely! I would love to hear your other songs, too.” Josh was being completely serious, but he didn’t _really_ know how much it meant to Tyler. Not yet at least.

The two of them played a few more songs, laughing and finding a lot of things they had in common. Tyler told Josh about his childhood and how both his parents really liked him playing basketball, and he did too, but ended up perusing music instead. Josh told him the same, of how he had friends but always felt like the one person who didn’t have a best friend. Eventually they started talking about the earlier events at the Alizoa ceremonies.

“It was crazy. My friend Frank got a dire wolf, and they are _huge_ man. I’ve never actually seen them in real life.” Josh remembered in disbelief. “And then, I thought all the excitement possible had happened, but Mikey got something entirely different.”

“What do you mean?” Tyler asked. They were sprawled out on the couch with music playing as background noise. Somehow, they had already managed to make the floor messy with clothes, and they had asked for a pizza and sodas to be delivered to the room.

“Well, it’s a new species. I don’t mean to be rude when I say this, but the best way to describe it would be a mutant.” Tyler still looked confused, so Josh continued.

“He was this rather large white tiger, which would’ve been normal, except when he came out of the box he collapsed onto the floor. Frank and another of the Great Three, Gee, I think, had this fight on their way to Mikey. I don’t really know _why_ they were fighting, but they were.”

“Well if it was Gee then he and Mikey are brothers. Maybe that had something to do with it?” Tyler suggested.

“Really? I never knew Mikey’s brother was Gee… Anyway, when Mikey stood up he had these crazy wings.”

“Wings? On a tiger?” Josh nodded, thinking back to the anger around him. He was really nervous about Mikey, and now that he was reliving it, it was really getting to him. He hadn’t seen so many people be that _angry_ before, especially not at one person. What if they tried to hurt him? Or banish him?

“Hey, you alright?” Tyler asked, nudging Josh slightly. He realized he had been zoning out a little, and he snapped back to reality.

“Yeah, I’m just worried they’re going to hurt him. No one seemed very happy about what he was.” Tyler nodded like he understood, which Josh was thankful for. There was a knock at their door and they both scrambled to get it.

“Woah!” Dane laughed when we opened the door in a pile. “Looks like you two are excited! Here’s your pizza. Do you need an alarm for tomorrow?” Tyler eagerly took the pizza back to the music area.

“Why would we need an alarm?” Josh asked him.

“Sometimes schedules have an early wake up call, and we don’t provide alarm clocks since we are able to come and wake you up easily, and all roommates share schedules,” Dane explained with a smile.

“We haven’t even gotten around to looking at our schedules…Tyler!” Josh yelled.

“Yeah!” Tyler’s speech was muffled - he had probably already starting eating the pizza.

“Bring out one of our schedules please!” Tyler came bouncing into the room with a paper in his hand and tomato sauce around his mouth. he handed it to me and I saw we needed to be at the lake at 10:00, and surely we would be awake by then

“That’s alright. I think we will be just fine without one.” Dane nodded and began to leave, before Josh called him back.

“Are you allowed to tell me where other people’s rooms are?” Josh asked. Dane burst into a smile again.

“Well of course I can! Who do you want to know?” Tyler came back next to Josh and joined the conversation.

“Jenna?” Tyler mumbled through pizza. Dane’s smile faltered just slightly, but it returned to happy.

“She doesn’t have a normal room because she isn’t of age yet, but we already know she’s a bear so is staying here down in the room we’ve made for her.” Tyler nodded and turned away, walking back to the music room.

“What about Ashley?” Josh asked. Dane laughed, still bubbly.

“Oh! How funny, she just asked what your room was,” Josh’s heart fluttered just slightly, “She’s in room 445, but I think she is planning to come visit you in a little while anyway. Is that all Joshua?” Dane finished.

“Uh, yeah. And you can just call me Josh.” Josh smiled at the guy.

“No problem! See you around, Josh!” He left down the stairs with jumpy footsteps. Before Josh even closed the door, he saw a flare of blue and looked back out.

“Ashley!” Josh exclaimed. She turned around and smiled.

“Josh! I was just looking for you. I was wondering if you wanted to hang out.” She twiddled her hands together nervously, but Josh just smiled and stepped back to let her in.

“Josh who is it?” Tyler came out and saw Ashley. “Oh, hi. I’m Tyler.”

“Ashley,” she returned. He nodded and gestured to the room behind him.

“Pizza?” He offered with a smile. She nodded and we all went to the music room together.

“You guys are big music people, huh?” She asked after sitting down and getting a slice of cheese pizza. Josh got his own piece of pepperoni and joined her and Tyler.

“I sing and play a couple instruments, mainly the piano and ukelele,” Tyler said.

“Yeah, I play the trumpet,” Josh smiled, “Oh also a little bit of drums on the side.” Tyler rolled his eyes and Ashley laughed.

“That’s so cool. I’ve been singing for a while, too.” And, of course, one thing led to another and we were back to having our jam session except now they had another singer as well. Josh thought it wouldn’t sound that great because Tyler and Ashely had completely different voices, but after some adjusting they sounded pretty good. Josh’s favorite song they sang was Build Me Up Buttercup. Their voices melted together really well and it just sounded perfect.

After a couple songs, they laughed and went back to being lazy on the couch, and decided to watch a movie. Tyler said he was retiring for the night a couple minutes into the movie, so Ashley and Josh were alone watching Avengers. It was nice. There were some comments on the movie every once in a while either on their favorite characters (Josh’s was the hulk and Ashley liked Thor. She liked his hair) or a flaw in the movie editing, but other than that it was quiet as they sat next to one another. The credits were rolling before they knew it and Ashley said she’d better get back to her room.

“It was nice hanging out with you,” She said, “We should do it again.”

“Definitely,” Josh agreed. She winked and walked away, leaving Josh smiling like a fool. He decided to go see if Tyler was awake, just in case. He went to his door and knocked.

“Ty? You in there?” He didn’t get any response so he tried again. “Tyler?” There was still no response, so he decided just to go in. Worse case scenario Tyler was asleep and he would wake him up and leave. Apparently, though, that wasn’t the worse case scenario, because when Josh walked into Tyler’s room all that was there was Tyler curled up on the floor with a knife next to him and blood flowing slowly off his chest.

“Tyler!” The brown haired kid’s body jumped just slightly at the noise and he looked up with sad eyes.

“Josh?” Tyler said, before registering exactly what was happening. When he did, his eyes widened and he seemed to wake up. “Josh! Y-you need to leave. I didn’t think that-“

“Shh,” Josh said, sprinting to the bathroom and getting a towel and quickly coming back. He wrapped it around Tyler’s chest and pet his hair.

“Josh you should leave…”

“Stop talking. I’m not going to leave you like this, so don’t try.”

“But-“

“Stop.”

**Author's Note:**

> Remember to comment if you want to see more!


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